Mayor Unveils Free NashVitality Mobile App

10/18/2012

Announces Designation as ‘Bicycle Friendly Community’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Mayor Karl Dean today unveiled a NashVitality mobile application that includes information for residents and visitors to be active outdoors in Nashville. He also led a 6.5-mile, round-trip bike ride from Cumberland Park to Shelby Bottoms to celebrate Nashville’s new designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists.

The free NashVitality app includes interactive maps for all types of activities, including walking, hiking, running, bicycling and water access. It also allows users to get information about the city’s green features, such as where to recycle and catch a city bus.

“For the first time, all you need to know to be healthy, active and green outdoors in Nashville is in one place,” Dean said. “Whether you’re looking for a wooded trail, a bike route or a playground, you can quickly and easily find it with this free app. Residents and visitors to our city will find it to be a useful guide to explore Nashville’s natural places and discover outdoor activities.”

The app is the first GPS-based mobile app in Nashville that includes maps of all the city’s paved and unpaved trails, sidewalks, bikeways, parks, community centers, nature centers, pools and other places for recreational activity. Every screen has an “Explore Near Me” option that, when clicked, will display areas to be active and green nearby.

To download the new NashVitality app, users can go to the Apple App Store from their iPhone or iPad and type “NashVitality” into the search display. Select and download the NashVitality app. A version for Android users will be available in the coming weeks.

NashVitality is a healthy living initiative of the Metro Public Health Department’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work campaign, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Also today, Mayor Dean announced Nashville has been designated a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community. The designation honors Nashville’s commitment to improving conditions for bicycling through investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and pro-bicycling policies. There are 242 Bicycle Friendly Communities in 47 states.

“Making biking in Nashville an easy, fun and safe choice is important to me, and I am pleased our progress on this front has resulted in recognition as a Bicycle Friendly Community,” Dean said. “Nashville has invested heavily in this area because bicycling helps promote active, healthy living. As a transportation alternative, biking reduces the number of cars on our roads, and that is good for the city’s environment.”

Mayor Dean has invested $7 million in capital spending projects on bikeways, which is on top of additional investments in greenways, complete streets and other infrastructure that supports bicycling.

Earlier this year, he opened the 26-mile Music City Bikeway that connects east and west Davidson County with downtown. The city also has a new Groove map, which identifies bike routes that are the most comfortable for all levels of riders. Additionally, the city is promoting a new educational initiative called Moving in Harmony that is Nashville’s local “Share the Road” campaign.